Peter Hoskin

Caitlin Rose’s The Stand-In: a fantastic album from a fantastic girl

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Alexander Larman

What happened to the Rishi Sunak I knew at school?

… Oh, I don’t want to embarrass myself, so let’s get down to cold, musical facts. Perhaps the main difference between this album and its predecessor is the texture. Caitlin Rose’s backing band, Steelism, has a louder part to play here, such that this is less girl-with-guitar and more girl-with-band-and-strings-and-heavy-production-values. The album’s best songs, including ‘I Was Cruel’ and ‘Waitin’’, have a menacing sort of rumble to them. It injects the lyrics — ‘You said love has always been kind to you, now you know it can be unkind too’ — with an even stronger dose of bitterness and regret.

There are some quieter moments in The Stand-In, but these also happen to be some of its weaker ones. ‘Golden Boy’ and ‘Old Numbers’ are decent songs in themselves, but the Hawaiian swoon of the former and the Twenties jazziness of the latter veer towards pastiche, sounding out of place amid the rest. Yet that’s as impartial as I’m going to be when it comes to Ms Rose: this is a fantastic album from a fantastic gal.

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